


I've got my love stuck in my head

by SD_oil



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Arospec Martin Blackwood, Asexual Martin Blackwood, Asexual Tim Stoker, Canon typical Martin cutting himself off, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27963197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SD_oil/pseuds/SD_oil
Summary: Martin knows what love is.He feels love, love for the way green tea tastes when it has steeped just long enough. Love for the way the sun sets between the two brown buildings he can see from his window. Love for the smells coming from the gardens he passes on a misty morning while walking to the Institute.He knows what love is, he feels it. But never towards someone.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Original Character (past), Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	I've got my love stuck in my head

**Author's Note:**

> Martin is arospec, possibly demi romantic asexual. Tim is aromantic asexual.  
> Title: Love stuck by Mother Mother! (Because i am a filthy cisn't)  
> i think thats all!! have fun reading folks!
> 
> cw:  
> Martin cutting himself off  
> Massive self doubt on Martins part  
> internalised arophobia on Martins part

Martin knows what love is. 

He feels love, love for the way green tea tastes when it has steeped just long enough. Love for the way the sun sets between the two brown buildings he can see from his window. Love for the smells coming from the gardens he passes on a misty morning while walking to the Institute. 

He knows what love is, he feels it. But never towards someone. 

He loves his friends, of course he does. He cares about them and he would do anything to make sure they are happy and comfortable.

What he doesn’t know is the love he sees on television. That want, that need for hands touching, lips meeting. It just looks performative to him. 

Yes he has had partners in the past, but it never felt genuine. It always felt like he was performing. The kisses were pleasant and the touching felt nice every once in a while, but the way love is portrayed in books and shows? He hasn’t felt it. 

He definitely cared about his partners. But when they broke up he never truly missed them, of course he was sad, he lost a friend, lost the constant attention. But a broken heart? He isn’t sure he has ever had that more than once.

He had a girlfriend once upon a time, xe was wonderful. Xe was probably the closest thing Martin has ever felt to romantic love. 

Whenever they met up Martin had this weird feeling in his lower stomach. Every little touch came together with the feeling of releasing your breath after holding it for a second too long.

He loved being around xem. The playing with his hair while he was laying in xyr lap, the small laughs at 3am, the cheek kisses when leaving for work in the morning.

When they broke up he felt horrible. Couldn’t remember feeling happy when it wasn’t in succession with them. Even the tea that he brewed when he was under the weather wasn’t able to warm him from the inside.

Surely xe felt the same way about him as he did about xem. The very first person he was sure he actually liked and the relationship didn’t even last a year.

Martin tried and chased the feeling he felt when he was with xem. 

Jumped from relationship to relationship just to feel that special feeling again. It didn’t show itself again. 

Yes he cared about his partners, but love? He isn’t sure.

It didn’t help that he had no time for a relationship when he joined the Magnus Institute. He was dumped into a job he had no experience with, not that anyone around him was aware of that, of course. All his time was spent learning how to archive, how to note down books. The general workings of a library and such tasks.

Then he met Tim. 

Tim with his perfect hair, cute button nose, and his flamboyant clothing style. He cared for him like one might care for a friend. 

Martin started talking to Tim, and he made a friend. The first one in a long time.

After a particularly stressful week for Tim. They met up for an evening of drinks. The evening ended with both of them sharing their trauma, like queer people tend to do. Tim told Martin about his brother and his lifelong search for revenge, Martin told Tim about his mother and his inability to love. 

He thought he was broken, the only one who was unable to feel love, for so many years. Now here he was drinking and sharing the inner workings of his brain with Tim sitting across from him, telling him he is not broken, that he himself doesn’t feel romantic love either, that there is a label and that there are more like him.

For the first time since he can remember he doesn’t feel broken. Doesn’t feel like there is something wrong with him. Doesn’t feel like he is some horrible monster because of the way he feels.

There is finally a label he can give himself. He finally knows he is arospec possibly leaning towards demiromantic and that there are people with the same feelings towards love.

The next day he and Tim meet again. This time to play some board games together. The following week they meet again, and the week after that, and the week after that.

“What are we?” Martin asks one evening while they were laying on the couch together, laying in silence with the interjection of a page being turned over every once in a while.

They never defined their relationship and it seemed to have moved past just friends, with the laying in each others arms on the couch and the soft smiles and forehead kisses.

“I don’t know, what would you call this?” Tim looked up from his book.

“Well, it has moved past a friendship, I think. But calling this a ‘romantic’ relationship would just make me feel, bad. So- I don’t know.”

“You know, honestly, western relation standards suck. The feeling that you have to spend your whole life connected to a single person is so unfamiliar to me. Especially the whole romance aspect. What even is romance, yes I get happy when I see your texts, and yes I would love to spend days on the couch together with you. Is that enough to make people force us to put a label on this thing?” He spoke passionately, hands fluttering in the air increasing in power with every spoken word.

of course Tim knew his own stance on love and relationships. He has known this life for a lot longer than he has. He has had time to think through his opinions and ignore what everyone else told him to think.

“Yeah, yeah. Love is just this thing we are all told to pursue. Let’s not label things, it just makes life more weird in the long run.” Martin said as he put his arms around Tim for more cuddles.

From then on they met up more often for lazy afternoons on the couch. And Martin wasn’t afraid to use Tim as his muse for his poems. Martin loved Tim, as much as he was possible. This didn’t stop him from wondering if he was enough. If Tim did care about him as much as he cared for Tim.

No, he couldn’t let himself think that. Tim has never actively shown him that he didn’t care. Tim has only shown him affection, this was just his mind overthinking. Just his mind telling him he wasn’t worth enough. He wasn’t planning on telling Tim this of course, he doesn’t need to burden Tim with his negative thoughts. He knows his mind is telling him lies so why should he tell Tim. But still there was this voice in the back of his head telling him that he should tell Tim. Tim could confirm his suspicions or tell him that he does indeed care about him. But no, he couldn’t burden Tim with this. These were his feelings. He should be able to deal with them himself.

And so Martin went on, keeping his thoughts to himself, the worries steadily increasing. Martin did what he knew best, block himself off from the thoughts that worried him. He started taking longer to respond to Tims messages, started making up excuses to not see him as often, avoiding walking in the halls near research during work.

He was stupid to think Tim wouldn’t notice. of course he would notice. but maybe that is what Martin wanted, to make sure Tim cares about him and notices when he changed his behaviour.

‘are you doing okay my dear?? i feel like you have been avoiding me these past few weeks, you want to talk about it? totally fine if you don't want to, just so you know i love you and i am here for you my love.’

Ofcourse Tim had to go and send him such a sweet message, how could he ignore Tim. He had to set his worries aside and tell him. It was the right thing to do.

‘Talking might be good for me, it is nothing bad though! don’t worry!’

‘friday after work at mine?’

‘Sounds good to me!’

He did it, now he has to talk to Tim. He can't hide behind his wall of silence anymore. He has to tell him his worries. He has to tell him. Tim is expecting him to share why, and he will tell him. Tim can either confirm his suspicion or not. One thing he forgot however was that it was currently Tuesday, three more days until he had to share his heart. He didn’t think about this part of the whole ordeal of sharing your thoughts. He would only be thinking about Friday, about how it will go.

It’s safe to say he didn’t get much sleep the rest of that week.

But work went by quickly and before he noticed it was Friday. It was Friday and all of a sudden the day felt longer than it ever had before. He was dreading the second the clock struck 5 o’clock. He felt scared, nervous, unprepared but most of all afraid of Tim telling him his thoughts were true, that he was a burden, that he actually didn’t like him that much and that it was better if they were to stop seeing each other.

He looked up from the stack of books he was working on to see Tims bright blue eyes looking at him from the doorframe he was leaning against.

“I thought we had said 5 o’clock my sweet, and here I am 5 past 5 and yet, no Martin in my arms.” He said, a grin on his lips.

“Oh, I- Sorry, seems like i’ve not noticed the time.”

“it’s fine, it’s fine Martin. I’ve missed you,” Tim embraced him placing a kiss on the top of his head. “You haven’t spoken that much to me these past few weeks, immagine the suffering I had to go through, with no one to give my affection to.”

“Oh it must have been very hard, mister ‘everyone loves and adores me.’ It must have been so hard for you.” He teased.

“Oh I see mister Blackwood, you don't talk to me for a long while and now you are making fun of me? I see how it is.” 

“Shut up,” He grinned. Placing a kiss on Tims cheek. “I’m done here anyway, wait for me outside?”

“Will do love,” Tim squeezed their joined hands before letting go to leave him to say goodbye to his coworkers.

They walked to Tim, hands interlocked between them, stopping on their walk to pet a golden retriever. Neither could resist her little dark eyes staring at them from afar, tail happily wagging.

The door was closed, they were alone on Tims couch, hands wrapped around a warm mug of lavender honey tea. It didn’t seem like Tim was planning on asking him about what he wanted to talk about, silently waiting until Martin brought it up. He could still choose to not talk, Tim wouldn’t mind. He wanted to keep quiet, he really did. But he knew, deep down, that he should talk to Tim. Tell him why he had been so distant. Tell him why he had been avoiding him.

“Do you like me?” He blurted out.

“Of course I do Martin, why?”

“Do you actually like me or are you just saying that to keep me from being hurt.” He mumbled.

“Martin, love, I didn't hear you please tell me what is going on.”

“I am scared, I fear, I have the feeling you don't actually like me? And that you are just pretending to like me because you don't want to hurt my feelings? And that you actually think i’m annoying when I ask for your attention, and before you start, yes I know that these thoughts are completely irrational, and I know that you don't actually hate me. But still my mind keeps racing, keeps filling my brain with these thoughts. I didn’t want to burden you with these feelings so I slowly removed myself from you. I stopped responding quickly to your messages because I thought I was being too needy. I stopped walking the halls near research because I felt like you would be annoyed and forced to interact with me when you saw me. I made up excuses for our movie evenings because I thought you would rather want to spend those evenings with your friends who weren’t me. We have been together nearly every other evening and my mind was telling me you wanted more time for other friends.”

“Martin,” he opened his hands asking Martin if he could hold him without words. ”Martin, I had no idea. I care about you so much. You make me so incredibly happy and not once have I thought any of those things. Whenever you send me a message my heart is filled with joy. I am always searching the halls for a glimpse of you, waiting to surprise you with a hug. Whenever i am with my friends I can't stop thinking of what we could do the next time we are together. I love you so very dearly and I will do so until you tell me to stop.” Martin interlocked their hands.

“You do?”

“I do. You are the world to me. You are so wonderful and amazing and I am so glad I got to meet you, and that you love me, and that I love you.”

“Okay, okay, that- that does take away my thoughts a bit. I- I- I love you too.”

“Now stop being worried and hug me, I have missed you so very much these past few weeks, you mister Blackwood have a lot of cuddles to make up for.”

Weeks went by. Neither of them filled with doubts. They went their separate ways at work, Martin in the library and Tim in research. That was until Tim came to him one evening.

“I'm going to be placed in a new department. You know Jon? I believe I told you about him before, Small dude, looks like he could be your grandpa, heart of gold? wears big swishy skirts?”

“Oh that jon! You mean the one with those dark brown eyes and dark hair with silver highlights that look like they sparkle in the sun.”

“Yes, shush, that Jon. He has been made the new archivist and he asked if I and Sasha could come with him to work in the archives.” 

“So he would be your boss? You would be working with your boss, who you would have a big admiration for? One might even say a platonic crush.”

“Yes Martin, I get it. Poor little Tim. Heart too big for all his love.”

In a smug voice Martin countered Tim, “you know you love me teasing you. Don’t lie to yourself.”

“It's true, my brain has a Martin deficiency, I need a constant supply otherwise I will die.” He said, throwing himself over Martin like a fainting victorian maiden.

“oh you sap. How has the magnificent Timothy Stoker not told the object of his infatuation his deepest feelings yet.”

“I am not even sure if he even likes men, not in a sexual, romantic or altruistic sense.”

“Tim, He works at the ‘Magnus Institute’, he wears long skirts for christs sake, does that sound like a heterosexual man to you?”

“We don’t do generalising and stereotyping in my household my dearest Martin Blackwood.”

“Tim! my sweet summer child. We don’t like stereotypes, but don't tell me this one isn’t true at least 70% of the time.”

“You, you might have a point. But still, I won't tell him. Not now when he is going to be my Boss.”

“Talking about Bosses, Elias actually sent me an email this morning.”

“The big boss sent you an email? Are you in trouble my sweet?”

“No, the opposite actually, he- he also gave me the opportunity to work in the archives with you, Sasha and Jon.”

“Martin! that is amazing!”

“You mean you wouldn’t mind? We would be together nearly 24/7 Tim. That would even tire out the best of us.”

“That might be, but shall we try? I promise to tell you the second I start to feel like I need space. I promise you that.”

“Okay, we can try.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write something without angst, it didn't work.  
> This chapter is okay! not that much angst, just wait for the next 2 chapters.


End file.
